"I am proud to shut down the government for border security, Chuck, because the people of this country don’t want criminals and people that have lots of problems and drugs pouring into our country. So I will take the mantle. I will be the one to shut it down. I’m not going to blame you for it." -- Trump, 12/11/18

Words of Advice:

"Never Feel Sorry For Anyone Who Owns an Airplane."-- Tina Marie

"If Something Seems To Be Too Good To Be True, It's Best To Shoot It, Just In Case." -- Fiona Glenanne

"Flying the Airplane is More Important than Radioing Your Plight to a Person on the GroundWho is Incapable of Understanding or Doing Anything About It." -- Unknown

"There seems to be almost no problem that Congress cannot, by diligent efforts and careful legislative drafting, make ten times worse." -- Me

I have little doubt that, as Trump walks out of the door of the White House, he'll pardon this particular Asswipe. Because the Asswipe only did what Trump has been calling for when he blows his "enemies of the people" steam-whistle.

It should be clear, by now, to even the most casual non-Trumpanzee observer that any result that Trump doesn't like is "unfair".

He must have been an awful person to play board game with: "You rolled eleven and bought Boardwalk! I wanted that! Unfaaaiiirrrr."

What a fucking pathetic and pitiful excuse for a man.

It also shows Trump's wannabee dictator impulses. Any criticism of him is unfair. All political foes should be locked up and jailed. If Trump had his way, we'd all have to have portraits of Commandante Bone Spurs in our homes.

About all Trump seemed to leave out was claiming that "them darkies will rape your daughters.”

This is just despicable. It shows Trump's level of desperation that he's going to claim the political apocalypse will happen if the Party of Trump loses the midterms. Obama lost the midterms in `10, Bush did in `06, Clinton did in `94 and there was no apocalypse.

What Trump is worried about is having the Democrats control the House, so his favorite butt-monkey, Devin Nunes, won't be able to protect Trump from congressional investigations.

The thing is, none of this will diminish his base a bit. All of them, including the self-titled "moral majority", knew what they were getting. Even if it's true that Trump has an illegitimate child, his supporters won't give a shit.

Because McCain's fight against cancer and decision to let go was all about Kelli Ward... or so that troll of a candidate thinks.

One has to be a Trump-grace narcissist to think of that. Which Ward apparently is.

Beyond that, from all of the hate and brickbats being thrown at McCain's corpse from the Right since his passing, you would have thought that he was Vladimir Lenin incarnate. Most of those figuratively dancing on McCain's corpse are not fit to have shined his shoes.

McCain served his country, in one fashion or another, for over six decades. I daresay that most of those now celebrating his passing have a tiny fraction of McCain' time serving this country, if any at all.

(I'm thinking in particular of Commandante Bone Spurs, in particular, who could not mention McCain's name while signing a bill bearing McCain's name. I don't believe for a nanosecond that he personally wrote the tweet to honor McCain's memory.)

If there was one moment when he showed his political character, it was when he refused to pander to a display of nativist bigotry during his `08 campaign:

[W]hen a woman said she did not trust Mr. Obama because “he’s an Arab,” Mr. McCain, in one of the most lauded moments of his campaign, replied: “No, ma’am. He’s a decent family man, a citizen that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues.”

I have disagreed with McCain on a lot of issues. But there was no doubt that McCain was grounded in patriotism, a sense of duty, and love of country.

Friday, August 24, 2018

I went to see it a couple of days ago. Calling it "awful" would be an understatement. The movies is nothing more than a series of fight/chase sequences connected by a plot which can only be described as ludicrous. The protagonist, Ethan Hunt, takes enough damage in some of the sequences to have put him in an ICU several times over (or in the ground).

It's a fucking cartoon with human actors. If the original series, which was somewhat cerebral, is compared to this movie, the movie is a tale told by someone with significant mental deficits.

Wait for it to come out in Redbox or on basic cable.
_____________________________[1] I should have remembered that the critics loved The English Patient. I thought it sucked. It was one of those rare movies in which one hoped that every character would die soon.

It makes some sense that Mrs. Trump would be trolling him. She is probably rather hurt by the revelations of all of the affairs that Trump was having while she was pregnant and then birthing their son. Trolling him in public would indeed be a sweet bit of payback.

As to Trump's racism, there is little to talk about. The only people who don't believe that Trump is a racist old crank are Trump, himself, and the lesser intelligent members of the American Nazi movement. Which is why even if Omarosa Manigault-Newman has a recording of Trump saying the N-word, it' really not going to move the needle on the "Trump is a Racist" meter.

The daughter of a friend rescued a stray cat a few years ago. His name was Fritz. Fritz developed kidney problems and diabetes. He was not amenable to being given meds or having his glucose monitored. Hell, it took a crew just to trim his claws.

In the last few days, his conditioned worsened. I volunteered to take him on his last ride.

He had just been sedated. A couple of minutes after this picture was taken, he fell asleep. Ten minutes after that, the veterinarian and a tech came in and gave Fritz the injection to end his suffering.

Mars doesn't have a magnetic field. The atmosphere would be stripped away by solar wind. In the meantime, the lack of a magnetic shield would mean that living aboveground on Mars would be inviting a probable death from cancer.

Friday, August 17, 2018

Thursday, August 16, 2018

Admiral William McRaven, a SEAL who retired in 2014 after 37 years of active duty, including commanding the US Special Operations Command, wrote an open letter to President* Trump to request that Trump also revoke his security clearance.

No doubt that the Trumpanzees will be lining up to slander a man who served his country with honor, a man whose service goes back to the time when Commandante Bone Spurs was having sex with everything that moved while fending off claims of housing discrimination.

Trump is a petty little excuse of a man. There are canines pooping in the park who are more dignified than Trump.

It would have cost Trump nothing to have a moment of magnanimity for McCain. But that's not Trump; he has the temper and self-control of a toddler boy and the prickly sense of personal self of a tweener girl.

There were over two decades' worth of complaints against USC gynecologist George Tyndall who was nicknamed "The Butcher". But USC did nothing, other than suspend him after 25 years of him allegedly abusing women during examinations. Dr. Creepo did things such as doing full-body examinations, purportedly to look for skin cancer.[1]

This shit happens over and over. It shouldn't take reporters looking into things for organizations to act against known abusers. But it does.

You can bet your paycheck that there are USC administrators who are blaming the Times for this scandal, instead of taking a good, hard look into the mirror that the story is holding up to them.

Because that's what bureaucrats do.

Every USC administrator who knew or should have known what was going on ought to be held to account for covering it up, or negligence. But since that's not going to happen, I wish on USC and its administrators a plague of civil litigation.

It's all about the grift for Team Trump. It would probably be as illegal as fuck for Trump 2020 to sell stuff branded with the logo of any of the seven existing uniformed services. But that likely won't apply to a military branch that exists only in the syphilitic mind of Commandante BoneSpurs.

"Trump 2020": That's probably the number of months that Donnie and his spawn (including the spawn-in-law) will spend in stir.

Let's be clear about this: Trump regards news outlets that "engage in bad behavior" as those which publish anything that is less than flattering about El Trumpo, his spawn or his current wife.

This country is defined by our liberties, freedoms and civil rights. Without those, we are nothing more than a collection of assholes with the military and economic power to back up our assholishness. In effect, we'd be no different from being a more powerful variant of Putin's Russia.

That Trump's base would be so willing to trash our constitutional if Trump said so suggests that to them, the Constitution is a meaningless piece of paper. The Pledge, to them, is like praying in church: Meaningless words that have no relevance once uttered.

They are faithless Americans. They are, in point of fact, traitors to the principles that our forefathers fought for.

Sunday, August 5, 2018

President Donald Trump on Sunday appeared to change his story about a 2016 meeting at Trump Tower that is pivotal to the special counsel’s investigation, tweeting that his son met with a Kremlin-connected lawyer to collect information about his political opponent.

There is no "appeared to" about it. Trump has just admitted that he, his son and his campaign sought to get information from a hostile foreign power about a political opponent.

That is an "in kind" donation. It's illegal for foreign nationals, let alone governments, to contribute to political campaigns.

So, sorry, El Trumpo, you not only broke the law, you just admitted to it.

If you're on the Right and you're going to defend Trump, then ask yourself how you would have reacted if Clinton had done it. If you say "no problem," then you're more than likely a pants-on-fire liar than not.

Trump colluded with the Russians. That point is now an established fact.

So now we're seeing whether the Right owes its allegiance to Donald Trump or to the United States of America, for "both" is no longer a viable answer.

I believe that warning Trump that his rhetoric will lead to people killing reporters ignores the fact that to Trump, if reporters do get killed by his supporters, that's not a bug, it's a feature.

It is exactly what Trump wants. He probably believes that if some of his supporters kill some reporters, the rest of the media will tone down their criticism of The Presidential Baboon out of fear. That those supporters will end up being shot themselves, spend life in prison or be executed is, to Trump, the cost of doing business.

Trump is inciting murder. If somebody gets killed, he should be charged with incitement, or something.

Trump is a despicable excuse for a human being. He is a fascist. His supporters, by cheering on Trump's attacks on the press, are demonstrating that they are not true Americans. They are phonies. They recite the Pledge of Allegiance and stand for the National Anthem, but they do not believe in the concepts of liberty and freedom for anyone other than themselves.

Other than buying ammunition at Walmart (and that's only been recently) and buying guns, I can count on the fingers of one hand the last time I had to show ID to buy anything and have five fingers left over.

Rule No. 5: Terms of Service: Political appointees of the Obama and Bush Administrations may not read this blog unless they (i) post a comment confessing same and (ii) acknowledge that both men are war criminals. This blog may not be read by members of the Arizona Legislature.

Violation of this term is a violation of 18 U.S.C. 1030(a)(2)(C) and you're off to share a cell with Chris Christie, asswipe.

Rule No. 6: If I wanted you to write a "guest post", I'd ask you. Don't bother asking me to put one up from you. I won't. Start yer own goddamn blog.You Have Been Warned.